Bouncing Bomb Dredged up After 70 Years

One of the original bouncing bombs created by the team of Sir Barnes Wallis has been recovered, 70 years after it sank to the bottom of a Scottish loch during testing.

Royal Navy divers pulled it up from Loch Striven 30 miles or so west of Glasgow, where the Highball bouncing bomb has been happily and continuously not exploding since it was tested in the spot during WWII. Around 200 of them were tested in the loch, and the reason they haven't exploded is because they weren't filled with explosives. It was a test and we didn't want to blow ourselves up, as that's not how wars work.

The plan is to exhibit the bomb, and hopefully one more that's earmarked for lifting soon, in the Brooklands Museum and the de Havilland Aircraft Museum, where future generations will be able to marvel at a rusty thing that showed we, as a nation, could once manufacture things.

These Highballs were used against shipping rather than enemy damns, but it was the footage of their testing in Loch Striven was used in the Dam Busters film. [Herald Scotland]